Textures look just like netkarPro. Just a couple of days ago Stefano Casillo, the man who programmed netkarPro and has worked for F1 Teams said that most F1 Simulators are not as good as rumored, and what is commercially available isnt that much behind what most F1 Teams have as (driveable) Simulators, said that in the iRacing Members Forum. He used to work on the Simulator for Toyota, now for Ferrari, his driving physics engine is always good, so this should be interesting.

So Toyota is NetKar Pro? I did a 'public' F1 simulator once that was Netkar based. It was a Mobil 1 promotion. It felt pretty good, I wonder how close that was to the actual F1 versions. Id be surprised actually, its hard to think an F1 car is that 'close'. Id have expected much much more.

So Toyota is NetKar Pro? I did a 'public' F1 simulator once that was Netkar based. It was a Mobil 1 promotion. It felt pretty good, I wonder how close that was to the actual F1 versions. Id be surprised actually, its hard to think an F1 car is that 'close'. Id have expected much much more.

I did a BMW Sauber one in my local mall when I lived in Germany a few years back, I think it was rFactor based but it was very good, you had the real deal steering wheel and everything!! The feedback wasn't so good though, and that contributed to me spinning off a couple of times, and taking it quite easy the rest...

I've also done the Brawn/Virgin (I think it was run by Virgin as part of their sponsorship) public simulator when I went to Mercedes Benz World at Brooklands earlier this year... That was absolutely brilliant!! The feedback through the wheel was very satisfying, and unlike all the dads that had a go to impress their kids, spinning off every corner and then saying it was too twitchy etc. I just got on with it and ended up setting times only a couple of seconds off the guys who were running it, who had been using it and that track all year!! They were even more impressed when my girlfriend told them I can't drive!! I spoke to the guy who was running it afterwards, and he was saying that they had been improving the virtual car's setup and calibration throughout the year, and it now felt very similar in it's wheel feedback to the real deal. It certainly felt tough to hold on to in the long corners, but even with just the wheel to tell you what's going on, rather than the whole body, you could feel the car begin to slide progressively. That felt good!

This Ferrari thing looks a bit too expensive for what it is, and for what equipment some people might have at home (some with the whole sheebang, others with a cheaper wheel or even a joypad maybe), but then again I don't have iRacing or rFactor etc. at home so I couldn't see myself getting this anyway...

Is there a prize for being the best? Like with the Gran Turismo Academy thing?

Yup. No doubt it's expensive for what you get in terms of content, but for me the handling more than makes up for it. Very grippy and pointy, but the car will bite you in the rear end if you push too much out of it. Only managed half a dozen laps yesterday as I had to go out, but those six laps were enough to convince me that I much prefer it to any rFactor F1 mod.

Does anyone else find that they are faced with a black screen when they ALT-TAB out and then try and get back in? Task manager reports the program as still running, but I have to kill the task and relaunch the game in order to play again.

There's no way that those in the 56's are driving the Ferrari realistically. Unfortunately they can exploit flaws in the physics engine.

F1 cars are driven without blending the throttle and the brake am I right in saying? Many do that in sims. I've seen videos with people going full lock round all the corners too

It doesn't matter stop trying to justify why they're better than you, it makes me laugh when people say 'ah but they're not being real' THEY DO WHAT THEY'VE GOT TO DO TO WIN THE COMPETITION ! Like any discipline of any kind anywhere in the world. Every F1 driver is exploiting every trick they can possibly find on the track and in the car.

F1 cars are driven without blending the throttle and the brake am I right in saying?

See this for an example (from F1 Racing Magazine) of throttle application when braking, courtesy of Michael Schumacher. It's a telemetry comparison of a few MSchu runs cast against a few Barichello runs.http://www.dellanave...es/f1racing.pdf

It doesn't matter stop trying to justify why they're better than you, it makes me laugh when people say 'ah but they're not being real' THEY DO WHAT THEY'VE GOT TO DO TO WIN THE COMPETITION ! Like any discipline of any kind anywhere in the world. Every F1 driver is exploiting every trick they can possibly find on the track and in the car.

Haha, touchy much? I'm just saying that Ferrari marketed it as a realistic simulator, which it is no doubt. But it is not perfect, the alien sim-racers have long been driving the cars contrary to how they are driven in real life. They may be faster than Massa in a simulator but they would be way off in the actual car - even if given weeks of practise.

Haha, touchy much? I'm just saying that Ferrari marketed it as a realistic simulator, which it is no doubt. But it is not perfect, the alien sim-racers have long been driving the cars contrary to how they are driven in real life. They may be faster than Massa in a simulator but they would be way off in the actual car - even if given weeks of practise.

I never stood a chance of troubling the leaderboards anyway

Well yes I am very touchy on this subject because for some people all they can do is be the best at something they have an opportunity that they have and people knock them through jealous disguised envy, and who knows what they could do in the real car with such deft of touch and judgement. Look at Arnaud Lacombe for example as far as I'm concerned he should get a lot of attention from the motorsport fraternity. The should really run an expensive experiment and really go at it full on and put him through a wonter testing program in F1 with financial support various places just to find out for once and for all how fast someone like that can really go in an F1. There's no point beating around the bush with dodgy competitions that don't give people the proper chance to shine due to circumstances, just give them a full on test program and be done with the question I say.My point is if they do it for 'son's of', 'nephew's of' and 'brothers of' or even any nepotistic reasons like what country they come from or what money they bring surely they can try and unlock undiscovered talent who make a name for themselves in a much more accurately represented way.

You have hit on an idea there that I can't for the life of me understand why it hasn't been tried out. Scouting programmes and trial days are how football teams discover hidden gems - you never see open karting days run by teams for those who do not have enough money to put together a season in karts and other series. At the moment the junior formulae are for those with rich and dedicated parents, or those who have got lucky with sponsorship. There are no doubt many people out there who are vastly talented and fast but are never recognised because the infrastructure or effort isn't there to discover them.

Greger Huttu is currently in the USA doing something. We only really know he was flown over there by iRacing and they can't tell us much since he has an exclusive deal with Top Gear magazine for his story.

For those that don't know, Greger has been the fastest, most consistent sim-racer on PC for the last decade. He has won almost every race in the $10,000 driver's world championship for iRacing (only one he hasn't won was the most recent race where he was forced to run without any practice in an unfamiliar setup because he's so far from his Finnish homeland).

This thing is ridiculous. So I purchased it and have downloaded it.. The config too is horrible and I apparently have no license to play. I don't remember getting one. Anyone know where I'm supposed to be able to find that?

I'm trying to set up a Logitech gamepad but I can't figure the config tool out at all. It is the WORST I have ever seen. Ever. Kind of annoyed that I spent money on this so far.

Well I had a go at it, I think its really good actually. I am in the mid 57's but I's not sure if I've set it up right. The logitech profiler doesn't work on my vista 64-bit OS so I gotta setup the wheel every time and also there is no FFB even though the drivers have been downloaded also my accel and brake share an axis and that axis cannot be used at the same time by both. If you try blipping the throttle under braking to keep the engine alive (not going into anti-stall) all it does is blend the brake pedal off a bit.
I like the simulation but to be honest PC games are such a pain in the arse to setup. So many variables, give me a console any day.

Personally i found it easy to configure in my case, even without a preset config for my wheel. afaik the only issue with vista is that the registry is bad and it attributes the wrong axis for the wheel. There is a tool in logitech's website to fix that in the same place you can download the drivers. But i guess it depends on what wheel you have if things work or not.

Does anyone else have a big deadzone at the END of the accelerator pedal travel? This doesn't show up in either the wheel setup or the FVA control settings, however when I look at the throttle bar in game I reach full throttle with a fair bit more travel left. Perhaps it's the game's throttle map rather than a problem with my pedals? For the record I'm using a G25 (wheels & pedals).

Had no problems installing it, I'm enjoying it even if it was a bit of an impulsive buy. The car model is fantastic (as you'd expect) and it looks really good on replays, the way it moves in the corners and over bumps seems very realistic. I'm down to a 59.0, but I doubt I'll find more than half a second so I'll never have a shot at beating the top guys, at least I'm in the top 500 at the moment!

Scratch that, down to a 58.3, maybe I can find some more time after all. Seems like I'm losing most of my time on acceleration and not braking as deeply as Massa.

Out of curiosity, what sort of bias changes are you making into which corners? I'd guess you're sliding it a bit rearward for the really tight hairpin after the right hander coming off the bridge, and maybe a bit to the front for the right hander going on to the bridge so you don't lose the rear as you turn, but I'm not really good at these things so I'd love to know what your idea is with the bias...

Well as I start the lap I'm down to 53.5 bias (trying to get lower and lower as unfortunately thats one of the reasons how the alien sim racers get their demon speed) I raise it by 3 or 4 clicks for the hairpin (otherwise my slide is too much, I just want that slight slide to help rotate the car) and then back down by 3 clicks for the final turn. My best time is a 57.817, but yesterday I did 4 other 57.8 laps - it's pretty much my peak, but I still think with the perfect lap I can fluke a high 57.6

Frustrating, I was stuck on a 57.6 and was regularly knocking off 5 tenths collectively in sectors 1 and 2 only to blow it at the final corner, and now I've actually got worse and started losing a couple of tenths at the first corner (taking far too wide a line) too. Interesting point about the bias, I didn't realise people were running it that rearwards in order to get laptime.

Well I think this game is quite good physics wise. I have never driven an F1 car so all I can rely on is the feeling that I THINK and assume the real car has. And this game reflects that quite well. Very planted, relatively easy and predictable handling (there's no fear factor so half of the speed doesn't come from how late you dare to brake) but still wants to snap on you on certain places. Missing a braking point even a bit will bite you in the ass.

That hotlapping chart thing is also fricking addictive. I gave up a week ago managing a pb of 56.706. Tad disappointed because I definitely had that 56.6 but messed up all the chances I had. Once I was even going for 56.5 but couldn't handle the pressure on the last corner.

I won't be buying the other two tracks though, got my hands full in iRacing already. Plus it's expensive!

That hotlapping chart thing is also fricking addictive. I gave up a week ago managing a pb of 56.706. Tad disappointed because I definitely had that 56.6 but messed up all the chances I had. Once I was even going for 56.5 but couldn't handle the pressure on the last corner.

Easiest way to avoid this is to not check your split times. If you realise you are up, you put pressure on yourself. Instead, concentrate on each corner as comes to maximize each one individually then check your time at the end of the lap. It's about the laptime.